All posts tagged London

I write this in an office sited just off Ludgate Circus, a few hundred yards from St. Paul’s Cathedral. I still find Wren’s masterpiece a daily object of wonder, whether glimpsed through Thames Valley mist, as today, caught gleaming in the sun or seen on a clear day as a speck on the horizon from the top of Richmond Park 11 miles away.

But 70 years ago tonight, the City of London was ablaze, on one of the worst nights of the Blitz. Max Hastings has a good account in the Daily Mail. And Margaret Gaskin’s “Blitz: The Story of the 29th December 1940” is gripping. That assault by the Luftwaffe destroyed large parts of the old City — the financial, trading and publishing district — with its warren of streets and historic buildings built after the previous great fire of 1666. If just one of the incendiary bombs that fell on its roof in 1940 had not been dislodged, or put out, by the brave fire crews, then St. Paul’s Cathedral could easily have gone with the old City. But, as if by a miracle, the cathedral survived.

London Mayor Boris Johnson has faced some criticism on previous occasions when London was hit by heavy snow. Did he do enough to coordinate the response and deal with the disruption? Did he bang together the heads of transport chiefs and local government bods and demand proper action on behalf of Londoners?

But, his Daily Telegraph column on Monday shows a battling Boris over-seeing a war on the elements.

The Metropolitan police Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson has not had a pleasant 24 hours. His force was woefully underprepared for the protests that turned into a riot at Millbank. Only around 200 officers were on hand and they were quickly overwhelmed by rampaging students. As I wrote yesterday, it took far too long for reinforcements to arrive.

Where were the riot police? Where was the tear gas and water cannon? As we saw last week, David Cameron and Defense Secretary Liam Fox are very keen on closer links with France. The two countries will share aircraft carriers, and there will be a sharp increase in military cooperation. Couldn’t Cameron and Fox ask President Sarkozy to loan Britain some riot-busting policemen from the formidable and not-to-be-messed-with CRS?

In a statement to the Commons, the police minister Nick Herbert has just praised the Met Commissioner. Why?

Actually he’s right to do so. One of the few bright spots in this very British farce, was the statement made by the Met’s commissioner on Wednesday evening. Sir Paul spoke bluntly, taking the blame and acknowledging his force had not prepared properly. This was, he said, an embarrassing day for the force and London.

Imagine if his predecessor Sir Ian Blair had been involved. He would most likely have claimed it had all gone to plan, praised his senior officers for doing a great job, been duffed up by the tabloids for days on end, then launched an internal investigation before issuing an apology that satisfied no one.

The student protests at Millbank have been running for a couple of hours now. Pictures from the scene in Westminster show windows smashed, fires lit and rioters on the roof of the building.

Protesters are phoning the television news channels on their mobiles and attempting to justify the trashing of the building that houses the Conservative Party’s headquarters. It’s a tiny minority out to cause trouble says the NUS, which is campaigning against coalition plans for a steep increase in tuition fees. No, turn on the television, there are hundreds involved and many hundreds more cheering them on outside the building.

But when this is all over, the police are going to have some serious questions to answer. Those in charge at Scotland Yard seemed badly prepared for today’s student protests.

Of course an attack on Millbank couldn’t have been anticipated, but in the heart of the capital and a brick’s throw from the Palace of Westminster, they should surely have been capable of mobilizing at greater speed and with much more force following the outbreak of trouble.

Initially, a tiny group of officers was pictured bravely attempting to hold back hundreds of marauding students but they were overwhelmed. It then appeared to take a long time for reinforcements to arrive. The Tactical Support Group has now turned up, and it is reported that they are making arrests and attempting to clear the building.

The muppets smashing up Millbank are to blame, of course. But in the police’s planning something has gone wrong.

Boris Johnson and Kelly Brook appear at a photocall to promote a London cycling event last week. Photograph: Getty Images

As I write, traffic in London is nose to tail. The taxis, if you can find an empty one, crawl along. The buses are absolutely packed.

There’s an underground strike on. Striking maintenance workers on the tube have succeeded in bringing travel chaos and disruption to one of the world’s great cities. As usual, Londoners are handling it with stoicism, but why should they have to?

Where is the London Mayor? Wasn’t he supposed to sort this kind of stuff out? Bicycling Boris Johnson was elected on a promise to negotiate a no-strike agreement with unions as part of a modernisation programme. He hasn’t delivered.

Incidentally, Johnson’s answer to anyone who complains about London gridlock is “get a bike”. But many of us don’t want to ride a bike to get around London. Personally, I have no desire to turn up to the office each morning with sweat patches on my suit, having only narrowly avoided death at the hands of a speeding cockney lorry driver. And what about people pushing prams, or with bags to carry? They need a tube network they can rely on.

Let me take you by the hand, and lead you through the streets of London (as Ralph McTell put it in that dreadful song). But you’ll note, as we progress, that it’s not a pretty sight. Has the capital ever been forced to endure more road works and obstructions put in the way of its citizens in peacetime? I doubt it very much.

The streets of London today are an absolute shamble(s). Almost every major thoroughfare seems to feature huge holes dug by workmen and endless orange and metal barriers. At some points, buses struggle to make their way through the carnage (for example on Waterloo Bridge, which has been partially closed for weeks now). It’s just as chaotic in many other spots.

Why is it so bad right now? I suspect councils and contractors know the money is about to run out and are getting done what they can before big public spending cuts. There is usually a profusion of roadworks in the run up to the year end, as councils rush to spend their annual budget, but this year there is an added incentive to spend cash now ahead of the coming big cuts whichever party wins the election.

I had forgotten how annoying Sir Ian Blair is. But then up pops the former Metropolitan Police commissioner with a new book to plug in an interview on the BBC’s Today program on Radio 4. Listening to him, being given a not-very-tough time by presenter Jim Naughtie, was like going back in time about three years when you could never get the man off the radio or TV.

Back then it seemed as though he was broadcasting perpetually, on a 24-hour continuous loop of platitudinous and patronizing observations on the nature of contemporary policing and what this meant for “communities.” It wasn’t so much the substance of what he said — although much of that was very much open to question (*) — it was that he never shut up about any of it.

In contrast, his successor Sir Paul Stephenson is a model Met commissioner. He agrees to be interviewed only when …